Chapter 12 - The Enemy at the Window
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Nora noticed the car outside her apartment again on Thursday morning.
It was parked across the street, partly hidden beneath a tree. The driver wore a baseball cap and appeared to be looking at his phone.
She watched him for several minutes before calling Samuel.
"Someone is outside."
Samuel contacted the building's independent security team. They reviewed the entrance cameras and found that the same vehicle had passed the apartment three times in two days.
The license plate belonged to a rental car.
The renter had used false identification.
Raphael arrived before noon.
"You should move to another location."
Nora looked at him from the couch.
"Is that an order?"
"It's a recommendation."
"Then I'll consider it."
He crouched beside her.
"Nora, someone is watching this apartment."
"I noticed."
"That means the people involved may know you have the ledger."
"They probably knew before I climbed the stairs."
He looked frustrated.
"You can't keep treating your life as an acceptable price for the investigation."
Nora stared at him.
"And you can't keep treating my safety as something you can manage without asking me."
He fell silent.
She took a breath.
"I appreciate what you're doing. I do. But I'm not a package you can move from one secure location to another. I want to understand what's happening, and I want a say in what happens to me."
Raphael slowly nodded.
"You're right."
The admission surprised her.
He continued, "We'll review the options together. You choose where you feel safest, and we'll arrange independent protection without restricting your movements unnecessarily."
"Thank you."
He stood.
"There's something else. Dominic has agreed to provide a full statement."
"What did he say?"
"He claims Peter threatened to expose old security failures if Dominic refused to cooperate. He says he disabled the camera transfer system because he thought Peter was investigating an internal leak."
"Did he know about the men who attacked me?"
"He denies it."
"Do you believe him?"
Raphael looked toward the window.
"I believe he made choices he should never have made. I don't yet know whether he knew what those choices would lead to."
Nora understood the distinction.
A person could be guilty of negligence without being guilty of murder. A person could protect a friend and still help create the conditions for a crime.
The investigation needed to establish the difference.
That afternoon, Nora reviewed the ledger's missing pages. She had copied the transaction index from memory, but the original records contained references to a separate archive held by an external accounting firm.
The firm had been hired to review Raphael's legitimate businesses the previous year.
Its director, Henry Cole, had resigned suddenly three months earlier.
Nora remembered the resignation because she had been asked to reconcile his outstanding invoices.
"Raphael," she said, "I think Peter may have used an outside accountant to validate the false transactions."
"Who?"
"Henry Cole."
Raphael frowned.
"Why would he cooperate?"
"I don't know. But if he approved the records, he may have the missing pages."
Samuel searched the company's correspondence and found an email from Henry sent shortly before his resignation.
It had been addressed to Peter Sloane.
I will not certify these transactions without original authorization. We need to discuss this privately.
Peter had replied:
You have already certified them.
The email ended there.
Nora stared at the screen.
"Henry knew."
Raphael called the accounting firm.
The director confirmed that Henry had left the company abruptly after reporting irregularities. His current address was not on file, and he had not responded to recent requests for information.
But the director provided one useful detail.
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Henry had a daughter named Sophie.
And Sophie worked at the hospital where Nora had been treated.
